Poetry about Love from Pakistan: The Coke Studio Experience

Exploring some of the factors that contributed to Coke Studio Pakistan's significant success as a musical phenomenon nationally, regionally, and globally, the talk will focus on the traditional Pakistani poetry in a variety of languages that made up the content of Coke Studio's most famous and popular songs. Special attention will be paid to the theme of 'love' as it has been traditionally interpreted in mystical-romantic literary contexts in the region, and its connection to modern notions of love songs and love poetry in the Islamicate and non-Islamicate contexts will be delved into. Broad observations will be made about the evolution of lyrics in Pakistan's music across all its major languages.

Speaker: Zahra Sabri, Lecturer in Indo-Muslim History and Literatures. Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts, IBA, Karachi.